


The Laughing Ewe

by SecondStarfall (beantiger)



Series: The Second Starfall Stories [48]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Abandonment, Clouds, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Style, Fantasy, Flash Fic, Gen, Jokes, Laughter, Loneliness, Medieval, Microfic, Original Character(s), Sheep, Talking Animals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25122007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beantiger/pseuds/SecondStarfall
Summary: Hannah resented her job. She wanted the land to know.***An energetic little girl learns to love her golden sheep.
Series: The Second Starfall Stories [48]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1582975
Kudos: 4





	The Laughing Ewe

**Author's Note:**

> **SUGGESTED RE-READING:** Enjoy a _Second Starfall_ tale about our new friend [Hannah Lestrange](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24733243) (or her childhood, at least).
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨

At eleven years old, the shepherdess Hannah Lestrange already harbored a deep, grown-up anger within her gut. It was thick like wool-wax. She often felt too small for it and screamed up and down the Althussian foothills so much that her golden sheep ignored her.

Hannah resented her job. She wanted the land to know.

***

At one point, people had called Hannah _charming,_ if you can believe it.

Like a spark born of an anvil-strike she used to bounce between the village-folk all day, aflame with chatter, gossip, and jokes. Laughter and songs and the scent and sound of her neighbors excited her. 

But then, when she was eight, the village and her woodcutter fathers had given her up to the king’s flock. 

Since then, she’d felt like the wind among dead trees: searching for life, and finding none. 

__

***

However—

Before you feel sore about the fate of little Hannah, know that her fathers, the Misters Lestrange, had good reason for their decision.

To tend the king’s flock meant to take upon yourself a great honor. (As Hannah was a middle child, her fathers understood that she would need such greatness thrust upon her.) It was the royal flock, although Althussian history had long since forgotten which king had adopted it. With the herd’s golden wool, the royal tailors created tunics and gowns of such magnificence that even old men wept upon seeing them. 

Her fathers also apprenticed her, however, because the flock's head ram told them to do so.

He had come to the Misters’ house at night and shoved his body through their bedroom window. His wool gleamed under the moon as he dangled from the sill.

“Your lamb,” said the ram Alphonse, who could talk and who had delicate mother-of-pearl hooves, “your girl-lamb called Hannah—there is something within her meant for us. I heard it from across the hills. I heard the clouds singing of it, and the song was neither sad nor happy: it merely was.”

You didn’t ignore something like that.

***

So Hannah was apprenticed to Very Old Lou, the current shepherd of the king’s flock. Despite his name—which he’d earned via his rugged, creased, desert-road appearance—he was in his twenties and had an earthy presence that Hannah appreciated. Yet just days after Hannah’s apprenticeship began, Very Old Lou disappeared into the night in pursuit of a bard he loved.

The villagers gave Hannah his books and his caravan. Her fathers and siblings gave her their love.

She taught herself to count in _yans_ and _tans._ She dipped the sheep in spirit-water to kill their chewing parasites. She slept under the stars when she could. She grew lonely, and then, as the years trudged onward, enraged. 

Her family visited once a week, for a few hours in the morning. The villagers checked on her monthly to bring coffee and supplies, and once more to collect the golden wool.

What had seemed like an adventure to her eight-year-old mind had become tedious. As she looked over the gently grazing flock, she always thought: how did anyone, anything, remain so silent, so still?

The ewes and wethers did not talk. They smelled of earth, and their coats blinded her in the summertime.

Alphonse the ram could talk, but kept to himself on the whole. He mostly watched the sky and commented quietly on the texture of the nimbuses and the cumuluses and, saints and spirits, it was enough to make her head pound.

So she screamed and screamed, as children do. She had forgotten how to use her voice, or her heart, for much else.

***

When Hannah was eleven years old, she received another golden ewe—a theave, unmated. This ewe, whose name was Cerise, could talk, and so she was suitable as a new wife for Alphonse.

Immediately upon arrival, however, Cerise hid in the caravan and refused to come out except to graze sparingly. At night, she slept as far away from Hannah as possible, practically hanging out of the back door. The little ewe never said a word. Whether she was shy or arrogant, Hannah didn’t know. Regardless, she did not have time for this horrid creature. Not between all her other frustrations.

“The wind and the clouds frighten her. She was raised among children as their companion,” Alphonse told Hannah one day. “I imagine you could make her laugh, and that would bring her comfort.”

“Why can’t you?” Hannah asked.

“I do not know what brings humans joy.”

“She isn’t human.”

“Yes, but she is young. I doubt she has the wisdom to understand herself.”

Hannah stomped away.

***

In the caravan, panting with heavy, hot emotion, Hannah kicked around her master’s books. She ripped down the curtains. She threw blankets and pillows out the window, and, torn, they spewed goose-feathers into the wind. With every act of pain she imagined her loneliness might lessen; she figured that destroying Very Old Lou’s belongings would somehow hurt him and her fathers and the whole village who had given her this terrible job.

But she only made herself tired. She lay on the floor. Cerise had fled the caravan, at some point. Hannah knew she should’ve gone to look for her immediately.

She sighed.

Destruction had come naturally to Hannah Lestrange. It does to most children. Yet for the first time in her life she reflected upon it.

Telling her fathers _no_ , telling the village _no,_ had never occurred to her. Even if they would have listened. They weren’t really unkind people, her family and her neighbors, which is why Hannah had never wanted to disappoint them.

She found a small leather-bound book next to her and looked inside half-heartedly. The tops of the pages were dated. Besides his notes about the king’s flock, scribbled on left-hand pages, Very Old Lou had also kept a more personal journal on the right-hand side. 

Hannah had never looked at those right-hand pages more closely. Very Old Lou had written about humor...or, well, the _idea_ of humor. It was all ugly, unfamiliar words. Sentences that contradicted themselves. Dense passages from famous Althussian philosophers arguing over what, truly, made people laugh. Things like that. Her master had abandoned his post to chase after some comic bard, and he studied for years to impress his love.

The contents of the journal seemed irrelevant, not to mention stupid. Who needed to _learn_ jokes? And yet, if Hannah had tried to tell a joke now, she knew she’d most certainly…

She tied the journal to her crook and read it as she tended the flock.

***

Cerise timidly approached the caravan by dusk, a soft, orange-yellow gem in the grass.

“Do you want to hear something funny?” Hannah called out to her, holding her master's journal in one hand.

The ewe avoided her gaze. “Well—I had heard you were funny...”

“I can be,” Hannah replied. A placid coolness fell over her. “Here’s a joke for you.”

***

For decades and decades to come, the ewe’s lovely laughter rattled across the highlands like clouds loosing rain onto a rooftop. You could not hear much else. You wouldn't have wanted to. 

**Author's Note:**

>  **AUTHOR'S COMMENTARY:** Yet another story I've wanted to write forever. This being a shared universe, I'm trying to explore lots of different kinds of characters, so here we are. I considered submitting this one out to a paid market since it stands alone so well, but eh. 
> 
> This Alphonse is the grandfather of Alphonse the Third, who we met in ["The Leech-Collector Makes An Effort."](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24733243) Cerise is the Third's grandma. Sheep don't live that long, even talking golden sheep.
> 
> Speaking of: talking animals are actually pretty uncommon in SecStar land. The average person has met at least one in their life, so they're not legendary, but most folks don't associate closely with them. I just happen to be writing a lot of stories with the folks who do. I am a furry, after all. :o)
> 
> Hannah's chronic fatigue came on later in her life, hence why she's full of pep here. Damn extroverts. 
> 
> ✨ [[see the full SecStar timeline](https://secondstarfall.com/index.php/Official_Timeline) | [check out the SecStar wiki](https://secondstarfall.com/)] ✨


End file.
